Snakes and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails
by Hook comma Jamie
Summary: When a witch decides that she wants to save Sam from being Sam his entire world comes crashing around his suddenly tiny feet. And somewhere between dodging cats and Bobby and throwing things at Cas, Sam remembers why he liked being Sammy to start with.
1. Chapter 1

If you're happy don't worry, you'll soon get over it.

-Murphy's Miscellaneous Laws

* * *

It wasn't a stretch to imagine that in the beginning of anything, when Fate was handing out assignments, the Winchesters drew the short straw. Mary's straw was pretty damn short. John's was even shorter. Dean's was the shortest. Sam's metaphoric 'straw' was so dismally pathetic and unfathomably minuscule; it technically ceased to exist in the face of its own stature.

Simply put, Sam's life sucked.

But that was part of the gig… alright, being the devil's vessel and taking a nosedive right into the darkest corner of hell, all the while clinging to your little brother's dead/undead/possessed-by-Michael-o,yes-_that-_Michael body wasn't part of what he'd signed on for. And the whole trapped-in-The-Cage-with-moody-Michael-and-Lucifer-o,yes-_that-_Lucifer for upwards of a hundred and eighty years hadn't been part of the deal either. But he was back and he mostly got along by not thinking about it.

No, that was a lie. The _only _way he woke up every morning not vomiting up his intestines with pure self-disgust and the 'My-life-sucks' blues was by not thinking about any of it. Not his mother. Not his father. Not Jessica. Not Ruby. Not the demon blood. Not Lilith. Not the Apocalypse that he started and ended. Not Lucifer. Not his supposed time spent inside The Cage. Not his body's time spent roaming free. Not any of it.

He was home.

And he was… 'happy'… in the broadest 'I'm-alive-and-have-a-soul' sense of the word.

He had Dean. He had Bobby. He had Cas. He had the Impala. What else could he ask for?

Actually, some water sounded pretty good.

"Dean," he rasped, opening his bleary eyes in an attempt to find his brother through his fever-clouded daze.

"What's up, Sammy?" Dean called from the small couch he had relocated to the end of Sam's bed, turning bodily to get a clear visual of his younger brother.

"Wat'r?" Sam's voice cracked all over that 'e' as his throat pointedly informed him that speaking was a poor decision through the only medium available. Pain.

"You still sound like crap." Dean commented as he stood to collect a water bottle from the mini-fridge. "Sure you don't want some… hot coffee… or something?" By 'hot coffee' Dean meant tea, obviously. He just didn't like the visual of himself hunched over a flowered tea pot, spooning sugar cubes into a dainty cup, pinky up when he sipped delicately at the flower flavored water. Sam got the code. It was one of the things Dean loved about having him back. The other things he loved about having him back was _everything. _

"Jus'," Sam started to croak.

"Water." Dean finished with a small smile, twisting the cap of the bottle loose and waiting for Sam to find his hand under the volumes of motel blankets surrounding him before handing it over.

"Th'nks." A smile ghosted over Sam's lips before he swallowed such a small sip of water when he put the bottle down on the bedside table it looked almost full still.

" 'Welcome." Dean shot off a grin before settling back in on the couch, more turned towards Sam now that he knew that he was more up for conversation. "Ready to talk some business?" He pulled up a manila folder and flipped through it at a quick but even pace.

"Shoot." Sam nodded, taking another tentative sip from the cold bottle.

"Alright," Dean grinned, gathering up the fruits of his labor to present. In the day and a half Sam had been forcefully incapacitated Dean had set out on researching for something to do once Sam was back on his huge feet. "Here's how it goes," Dean cleared his throat professionally. "Dead," he held up two pictures of smiling men with bright eyes and dark hair. "Witch," he held up a picture of a blond woman wearing an inverted pentacle around her neck. "The end."

Sam blinked. And then he started choking.

"Whoah, Sam!" Dean leapt up, levering Sam into an upright position. It wasn't until the blind spark of panic faded that he realized Sam was _laughing_, taking deep, harsh gasps to compensate the constricting pain of his throat. "Calm down, it wasn't that funny." He was laughing a little bit now too.

"Funnier—" Sam gasped. "When—" Gasp. "Can'—" Gasp. "Breathe—"

"Drink," Dean chuckled, passing over the water bottle. Sam silently acquiesced, gasping in relief, the smile still tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Is there more, or am I s'posed to take your word she's a witch?" Sam coughed out after a few more swallows, voice scratchy and rough.

"My word is gold!" Dean huffed in mock offense. "But if you need more proof, it's all in here." He practically flung himself across the bed, and, in effect, Sam, to reach the abandoned folder, Sam choke-laughing and kicking weakly the whole time. Dean was still chuckling lightly when he settled next to Sam, folder open on his lap. "Scott MacGuilicudy and Victor Lamar both went missing in the last month from the same general area," he pointed out the two pictures he held up earlier, unfolding a map with the last know whereabouts of the two circled in red. "Our friendly neighborhood police officers found them on two different sacrificial officers in the woods, chests cracked open, hearts ripped out, eyes MIA, and, get this, all of their hair cut off." He pointed out the two red Xs on the map.

"What?" Sam sorted through the papers. That was just weird.

"I know, right?" Dean picked out the newspaper clippings and handed them over.

"Why the hair?" Sam scanned the short obituaries and then leafed through the police report Dean then passed over. The hearts he could understand. The eyes were practically common. But the _hair? _

"Dunno," Dean shrugged. "Called Bobby and asked him, but he had no idea either. Said he'd look into it, though, so there's that."

Sam nodded as he flipped professionally through the gruesome pictures of the two men splayed out over the wooden alters, the smoldering remains of a bon fire set directly behind them. "This looks like a cult, not just one witch." Sam rasped.

"That's what I thought, too," Dean picked the papers out of Sam's fingers, replacing them with older newspaper clippings. "Until I met Mallory Redwood," Mallory Redwood was a looker, plain and simple. Blond curls that tumbled past her shoulders, dark blue eyes that stormed with passion, full red lips, and a long, elegant neck. Of course, she would have been prettier if, in every picture Sam saw, she wasn't covered in blood. "Apparently weird shit's been going on in this town for a little over a year. Dogs going missing, snakes and frogs practically dying out in the area. I'm telling you, Sam, its friggin' weird around here."

"Cute," Sam grimaced at a picture of a disemboweled and strategically sacrificed cat with what he assumed to be Mallory Redwood's bloody hand prints surrounding it.

"Nobody's been able to get her for anything solid yet, just a whole lot of circumstantial nonsense," Dean pointed out a particular picture of Mallory's house. Simply put, it looked like a witch's house. "The chick practically advertises that she's a witch. She's branded spells into her front door. She keeps her book in a display case in the front window. That's not normal."

"Because witches always play by the rules." Sam scoffed groggily. "We should still look around her house; see if we can get any hard evidence before we do something."

Dean smirked, snapping the folder shut on Sam's fingers. "You still sound like absolute crap." He informed him as he rolled off the bed. Sam choke-laughed again and Dean was just happy to hear any laugh at all. "Alright, Sasquatch, get some more sleep and if your feeling better when you wake up we'll go check out this Redwood chick's digs."

"But-" Sam started to argue, impatient to do something other than sit around and wallow.

_"Sleep."_ Dean intoned. "The world's still gonna be full of crap when you wake up, I promise."

Sam grumbled lightly under his breath but rolled over. And, even though he knew that Dean was right about the world still being full of crap when he would wake, he was blissfully unaware of just _how much _crap it was going to be.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hi there! As this is my first moderately successful Supernatural story I thought I should probably throw in some sort of greeting… it's not going very well so far… heh, anyway- Thanks for all the favorites and alerts and a very special thank you for **cold kagamoe **and **The Banana Nut Muffin**. _

_Why?_

_**BECAUSE I LOVE THEM BEST. **_

_:D_

_

* * *

_

Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to it's value.

-Murphy's Miscellaneous Laws

* * *

"Up and at 'em, Sammy." Dean's voice crashing through Sam's sleep coupled with the jarring of the bed in time with Dean's jumping on the corner, Sam felt like his few hours of peace had been interrupted by a frieght train.

"Midnight already?" Sam grumbled, burrowing his face deeper into the motel scented pillow.

"Time flies when you're in a drug induced stupor, huh?" Dean chuckled as he rooted through Sam's duffle, tossing a pair of jeans and an overshirt onto the end of the bed.

Sam groused something not even he fully understood as he rolled out of bed and guessed that he was at about 73% working capacity. He wouldn't have gone hunting it he was anything less than 90, but they weren't hunting, they were checking out some woman's house. Some woman Sam was pretty sure wasn't even a bona fide witch.

Even if she was an honest-to-God witch she wouldn't be in her house now. Tonight was a full moon and the hours between midnight and three were almost guaranteed to be witch-free. They don't call it 'Witching Hour' because they hung around their houses, sipping tea and reading Anne Rice.

Forty-five minutes went into precautionary weapon prep, namely the handguns and any switchblade/hunting knife combination either of them saw fit. So, a pretty light day for the Winchesters, all things considering. And by 'all things' I mean the shotguns that they left in the trunk of the Impala when they approached Mallory Redwood's domain.

"You sure you're ready?" Dean called over his shoulder as he stood in front of the marred and scarred front door of the Redwood estate.

"You ask me one more time and I'm gonna cough all over you." Sam snorted, shouldering Dean out of the way so he could pick the lock.

He couldn't see Dean's wide grin, and he didn't see how almost irrationally excited he was to see Sam picking locks instead of kicking doors. It seemed his amazement over Sam's soul would never leave him. The amazement, or maybe the relief.

The tumblers within the lock yielded and the door sprang open easily.

"Ladies first," Dean jabbed his chin forward, ushering Sam in. Sam scoffed and rolled his eyes, but slunk through the narrow crack between the door and the frame. Dean swept his eyes over the surrounding wood once more to make sure they weren't being watched before he followed.

He expected the floor boards to creak under his feet. He expected the old place to be dusty and dark and generally unkempt. Hell, he might have even expected the chubby little black cat to scamper around the corner. What he did not expect, however, was for every bone in his body to lock in place the second he passed over the threshold.

"Dean?" Sam coughed through his teeth, in a fairly similar predicament given the awkward hunch of his shoulders.

"Yeah, Sammy?" Dean grunted, working his muscles as hard as he could to get his bones to function.

"I think we've got the right house."

"No kidding." A new voice, soft and feminine, chimed in from the depths of the shadows. "I have to say what a pleasure it is to see you two boys… well, what a pleasure it is to see Sam, anyway." The light in the corner was switched on mercilessly; scorching both of their eyes, but when Sam was finally able to blink away the temporary blindness he saw the room in full light for the first time.

* * *

Mallory Redwood's life was sad.

Maybe that justified what she had become.

Maybe it didn't.

She didn't really care either way.

Her mother had died when she was seven. Then her father when she was eleven. Her foster parents had beaten the hell out of her, a sport which her first boyfriend had taken to like a champ. At eighteen she had bailed to a rinky-dink town in Louisiana, hoping the people down south would be kinder and more welcoming. To her relief, she'd been right. She found herself a man that didn't love her with his fists and, though the father didn't stick around, a year into their relationship she had a beautiful baby boy, Sam. Sam Redwood.

Sam had been four when Mallory had the supernatural world shoved down her throat.

Do you know what ingredients it takes for a witch to summon a plague demon?

Cat skull, human blood, dried sage, chalk, and a child's heart.

A _child's _heart.

That's how Mallory lost her son and her sanity on the same night.

The funny thing was that it didn't really register in Mallory's brain that either was really truly gone forever until after she had just cut three witches' throats. There was only so much Mallory Redwood was willing to take lying down and her son had been the last good thing she had believed him. So, she decided: _Fuck it, _if a witch had taken her son away, a witch could sure as hell bring him back. She stole the books, buried her son, and got to researching.

However, the longer and harder she researched, the less and less hope she had for ever getting her Sam back.

And then she heard about a _new _Sam.

A tragic hero Sam. A Sam she could actually _save. _Sam Winchester. The demons she listened in on talked about nothing else. Sam Winchester this, Sam Winchester that, they laughed about all the boy had suffered through by their hands and the hands of the people he trusted the most. And the more Mallory listened, the more her heart bled for Sam Winchester. The more she thought that maybe she could save Sam Winchester and get another chance at being happy at the same time.

Mallory Redwood's life was sad.

But, Sam Winchester's life was sadder.

Maybe it justified what Mallory was planning to do.

Maybe it didn't.

She didn't really care either way.

She just wanted a Sam.

* * *

"Do we know you?" Dean growled from behind him, pointedly ignoring the altar with two sets of human hearts, eyes, and hair laid out strategically across it.

"No," Mallory Redwood said simply from her spot lounging in an ornate armchair, one leg dangling over the side, swirling her skirts. "But I know you." She smiled at them… or, rather, at Sam, as she had yet to make eye contact with Dean.

"How did I know she was going to say that?" Dean rumbled darkly in his throat, still fighting and straining against whatever hoodoo had him pinned.

"Now," Mallory pointedly ignored the eldest Winchester, blue eyes still transfixed on Sam as she stood. "Lets get a good look at you, sugar."

"Don't touch me," Sam coughed.

"I'm not going to hurt you, baby boy." Mallory assured gently, in an almost matronly tone. "I just want to make sure you're alright."

"That's sweet, really," Sam snipped snidely, trying heroically and failing miserably to pull away as her cool fingers ghosted across his hot forehead.

"You have a fever!" Her brows furrowed with vexation. Vexation with _what, _Sam had no damn clue, but he really wanted her to take her hands off him. "You let him out with _a fever_?" She turned to Dean for the first time and Sam imagined her tone was the same tone Mary Winchester would have used if she had been in the same situation.

"He's sick, you son of a bitch! And you let him out of that crappy motel room you call a sanctuary?" Mallory stamped her foot, glaring full force at a very stunned Dean.

And had this very stunned Dean had full motor control at the moment Mallory Redwood would have been missing teeth. How _dare _she, _anyone, _imply that Dean had done something wrong by Sam. That _bitch._ Who _the hell _did she think she was?

"Come on, baby," Mallory shot one last nasty look to Dean before standing on her toes to wrap an arm around Sam's wide shoulders, ushering him jerkily and not under his own will to the chair she had previously sat in. "I'll make it okay."

"Dean?" Sam called out. Dean worked his tongue, tried to call out and tell Sam that if he'd gone to hell and back, gone to heaven and back, faced off against demons and monsters and angels for Sam, he sure as hell wasn't letting some psychotic witch take him any step farther away from him. He'd fought too hard and too long. And yet, his tongue seemed to be frozen along with his bones, only giving Sam uncomforting silence.

"Don't you worry about a thing, Sam," Mallory smiled softly, carding her fingers through Sam's hair. Sam grimaced at the feeling, a viscous mixture of trepidation and disgust snaking around in his gut as he tensed his muscles so forcefully he could almost hear the strain. And still, his bones didn't budge. "I'm going to make sure _everything _works out, sugar." She shot him one last brilliant smile before abandoning the arm of the chair to slink out the door to where Sam assumed to be a kitchen, the black cat weaving between her feet as she took the graceful steps necessary.

"How do you figure?" Sam called out to keep her talking, eyes locked with Dean. He furrowed his eyebrows and screwed up his nose. _'Any ideas?'_

Dean pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes. _'Dude, I can't even move.' _

Sam's brow puckered in the middle. _'Crap.' _

Dean's face paled. _'Pretty much.' _

"Hm?" Mallory hummed as she came back through the door, five sealed containers balanced in her arms. "What was that, hun?" She beamed over to him as she set the containers out.

"I asked you how you thought you were going to make everything work out." Sam gritted out, dredging up anything and everything he could on finding loopholes in spellwork.

"With snakes and snails and puppy dog tails," Mallory giggled.

Sam's brain stopped working. The blood drained from his face. "Excuse me?"

Mallory giggled again as she pried the lids off the containers she'd brought back with her and both Sam and Dean found themselves gagging on the smell that assaulted the room.

"Of course it takes a little bit more than just that," Mallory sighed conversationally as she emptied a tupperware full of dead snakes into the bowl in the center of the altar. "Not just snakes and snails and puppy dog tails, I'm afraid." A bowl of still slimy snails and soggy rope-like pieces of what Sam had to assume had once been the neighborhood dogs. "It takes frogs and eyes and hearts and hair, too." Mallory continued unloading the containers, sighing again. "The things the nursery rhymes don't tell you, I swear." She hummed to herself brightly as she dumped the last fragments of human heart into the bowl. "_Sugar and spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of. But little boys? Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of."_ She giggled.

"Dean!" Sam was fighting even harder now, jerking and straining every muscle available frantically as he fought to escape.

Dean could only make a loud grunt from his throat as any form of comfort; fighting for all he was worth against whatever spell he was under. The very last thing that someone would accuse Dean Winchester of being was stationary under pressure. There was always something to do, some action to be executed. Being forced to be still, _now _of all times, was almost as bad as the situation itself. He started looking around frantically, searching for whatever character or totem had him pinned.

A chalk scribble on the wall adjacent to him caught his eye.

"Why do you always call to Dean?" Mallory wondered out loud, sighing heavily. "He's never done anything for you," she planted her chin in her palm.

"_What?" _Sam spluttered. This was officially the most insane conversation he'd ever had with anyone.

"I mean it," Mallory nodded empathetically. "Dean has everything, _everything. _And what do you get? Honey, at the end of the day, you get more and more of the same old bad luck."

"You're crazy." Sam stared at her. Was she _actually _questioning his relationship with his brother? If the _apocalypse _could barely put a dent in their relationship, what did she think she was going to accomplish? "You're _crazy._ Dean and I—"

"Dean has everything," Mallory repeated. "He had a mother, he had a father, he has a brother who _threw himself into Lucifer's Cage for him_, he has an angel who's at his beck and call, and he's your surrogate father's favorite."

Sam felt like he'd been punched. Equal parts indignance and hurt roared up inside of him. "You don't even know what you're talking about." He growled.

"And what did you get out of being Dean Winchester's brother?" Mallory continued, rolling the knife between her fingers as the black cat settled next to her comfortably, its piercing blue eyes cutting through Sam. "You never knew your mother. In fact, she sold your soul. You never even really knew your father. The love of your life burned on the ceiling on top of you. You died. Then you had to live with the failure of not being able to save your brother. Then there was that whole Ruby fiasco, which led to that whole apocalypse fiasco, which led to that whole 'Lucifer's vessel' fiasco, which led to that whole 'Dean doesn't trust me anymore' fiasco, which you could only solve by locking yourself in The Cage for, what was it? One hundred and eighty years, Sam. And that goes without mentioning your soulless days."

"Dean – Dean fixed-" Sam swallowed roughly. "Dean fixed everything. Dean _always _fixes-"

"Only after he broke it in the first place!" Mallory slammed her fist down on the table. Neither of them nothing Dean spitting through his teeth frantically at the wall in the corner. "Dean has _everything!" _She shouted again. "The angle loves him best! Singer loves him best! You love him best! That Lisa woman and the boy love him best! Who loves you, Sam?"

"D-" Sam's throat was closing up, he was taking shallow, panicked breaths, his fever was spiking, and he didn't want to be listening to her anymore. In the most childlike and naïve way possibly he wanted to go home, he wanted to hide under a blanket, he wanted to snuggle with that stupid stuffed tiger that Dean won him at a carnival when he was eight, he wanted to tuck himself into the nook behind the driver's seat of the Impala.

"Doesn't Dean have enough love?" Mallory demanded. "What about you? What about _me_?" She looked at him pleadingly for a moment before composing herself with a tempered breath. "It's okay. I'm going to make everything okay," she assured him gently as she cupped the side of his face. Sam didn't even care enough to try and jerk away.

She plucked a hair off his head and tossed it casually into the bowl.

"I'm going to make it okay." She repeated one last time before flicking on a lighter and letting the flame tumble into the bowl.

* * *

Dean spat frantically through his cleanched teeth, the entire world muffling around him as his tunnle vision focused on the chalk scrawl he was attempting to disrupt. He spat again, air and spit hissing from between his teeth and finally a glob of spit- the most beautiful goddamn glob of spit Dean had ever seen, actually- landed on the chalk, dissolving and smudging the line.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean crowed, stumbling forward and nearly bashing his head on the wall. He fumbled with himself for an awkward moment before regaining his bearing and charging the altar, tipping everything- snakes, snails, puppy dog tails, frogs, eyes, hearts, hair, fire- over onto the floor.

"The hell are you doing!" Mallory screeched, going to her knees and fumbling her hands over the burning hearts, hissing in pain.

Dean leapt over her, intent on getting to last place he'd seen Sam. Only, the arm chair was empty. Vacant. Uninhabited.

"Sam!" He screamed. "_Sammy!" _

"Dean?" A small voice called out and Dean whipped around in a tight circl before he realized the voice was coming from behind the arm chair. He practically threw the chair out of the way.

A little boy sat huddled in the corner, knobby knees pulled up under his chin, mess of sloppy dark hair falling infront of his wide hazle eyes. And, even though Dean hadn't seen that face in twenty four years, he knew.

"Sam?"

Sam's eyes welled and his lip trembled. "Dean, was she right?"

"Come on, Sammy, we gotta get out of here." Dean beckoned to the little _little _brother, quickly deciding that he had time for his entire reality to have that life shattering '_...Oh..._' moment later.

"Was she telling the truth!" Sam pulled back farther into the corner.

"Sam!" Dean shouted. "Now is not the time!" He leapt forward, bundling up the sixty pounds of Sam left.

"Don't you touch him!" Mallory snarled, burning carcasses ringing her, seemingly seething with her fury and at the same time making a thick barrier between her and Dean.

"I am so done with you," Dean jerked his pistol and aimed it solidly and he would have fired, _he would have fired, _if he hadn't heard the most distressing noise he had ever heard in his life.

"D-" Sam gasped hoarsly, clutching at his throat. "C'n br'th." His lips were tinted blue.

And _pardon Dean _for forgetting about the witch and the fire and the damn cat, but he very suddenly had more important things to worry about.

"Shit, Sammy!" Dean was so far out of his league he didn't even know where to begin.

"H'spt'l." Sam croaked.

Dean was already mapping out the route to the hospital, his legs carrying him and a four-year-old problem he didn't know how to deal with faster than he would have thought possible.

* * *

By the time Mallory could put out the fires Dean Winchester was long gone, taking her Sam with him.

The black cat rubbed against her ankles.

"I want Sam, Hoodoo." She met the cat's blue eyes. "Do you understand me?"

The cat, Hoodoo, nodded, and if one didn't know better, it could have been said Hoodoo smirked before trotting away.

* * *

_Annnnd I'm tired. And I have a Spanish test tomorrow I should probably be studying for instead of... y'know, not studying for a spanish test I have tomorrow. The hell am I doing writing fanfiction at ten o clock at night anyway? Pfft. Ridonkulous, that's what this is. _

_If you have a spare second I'd love to hear from you. So… review? Por favor? Tell me to my face how much you wish you could knock my drink out of my hand? _

_'til next time, I suppose. :D_

_-Me. _


	3. Chapter 3

_Hah! Didn't even have to take the Spanish test. School was cancelled. Whhhawesome. Made less awesome by the fact I had more time to psych myself out for supernatural and then feel the pang of loss at the lack thereof, but heeey, you win some you lose some. :D Again thank you all for the alerts and favorites BUT THANK YOU ESPECIALLY **J-Brid2006, Nyx Ro, Inyuashasgirl16, AndThenBigBangHappened, cold kagome, 13, ****Angry Cupcake, **__and __**The Banana Nut Muffin. **_

_Why?_

**_BECAUSE THEY'RE MY FAVORITES._**

* * *

Things can't get worse if you were born an Amazon pygmy cannibal.

-Murphy's Miscellaneous Laws

* * *

"Somebody help!" Dean's voice bellowed loudly thorough the halls of the hospital as he burst through the doors of the emergency room like a force of nature, a little Sam who was gasping shallowly in his throat like a fish out of water clinging to his neck.

Seeing as how a child who couldn't breathe was more of a legitimate 'Emergency' than Mr. Broken Arm in the corner, Sam was jumped by the closest nurse, hauled onto a gurney and carted quickly away, clinging to Dean for dear life the whole while.

"What's his name?" The nurse demanded, flashlight aimed down Sam's throat.

"Sam," Dean held tight to the little hand gripping around his first two fingers, trying and failing to not let a small semi-hysterical bubble of laughter burst from his lips because his first two fingers were the only things Sam could fit into his tiny hand.

"Sam," The nurse said solidly, anchoring herself as the only actually calm one in the situation. "Sam I need you to try and breathe with me, honey, okay? Calm down and breathe with me." She planted her hand firmly on Sam's chest and took exaggerated breaths for Sam to mimic. Dean didn't know if he was supposed to be breathing with her or not, but he was.

Sam's wide, finicky eyes were locked on Dean, had been since Dean had clutched him to his chest with one arm and steered the Impala with the other. Maybe for even longer than that. Those wide wet hazel eyes were pleading with Dean for something, something deeper than Dean could begin to fathom at the moment as he sat hunched over the small body of his brother, who seemed to be choking on air. And even if Dean could have guessed what Sam was asking him, there was no way he could have begun to comprehend what answer he was looking for in response.

Dean had fallen out of practice in the art of reading Sam. This four-year-old version especially.

"It's gonna be okay, Sammy." Dean ran his hand across the top of Sam's head in the hopes that he was giving the right answer, the hair there plastered to his skull with sweat. Sam trembled almost violently under his palm. "I promise. You understand me, Sam? I'm gonna fix this."

_Dean fixes everything. Dean always fixes-_

Sam's breathing grew even more erratic, if it was even possible, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

"Sammy!" Dean's voice rose high with the unadulterated panic that was clawing at the edges of his sanity and wellbeing. "Sammy, don't you do this to me! Not now!"

"Sir!" The nurse shouted him down. "You need to leave!"

"I'm not-"

"Someone get him out of here!" The nurse snapped and Dean was promptly and violently ushered out.

* * *

Sam was distinctly aware of the exact moment he was sedated, mostly due to the fact that it was the exact moment he fell into the depths of a dream, and he was aware the exact moment he started to dream due to the fact that Lucifer was there.

"Hey, Sammy," Lucifer smiled from where he sat on his haunches in the middle of the blackness, plaid shirt tails hanging loosely between his jean clad knees. "How's life?"

"Go away." Sam was too bone tired for this. His voice echoed loudly across the thick blackness despite the fact that the words themselves had been soft and raspy.

"No can do," Lucifer sighed, scratching absently at his tawny beard. "You and I need to have a chat."

"You're not real." Sam accused softly, his voice was again consumed by the darkness and then spit back out in ever tone and volume imaginable. "You're still in The Cage."

"There's the kicker," Lucifer grinned. "If I'm in your dreams am I really still all in The Cage? Am I leaking through the bars, Sammy? Or, am I just all in your head? Maybe I've always been just all in your head."

"Go away," Sam clamped his hands down over his ears. "Go away, go away, go 'way, gowaygoway_goway_!" The darkness shouted the words back at him. "Leave me alone!"

"I can't leave you alone, Sam." Lucifer sighed gently. "Know why?" His voice took on a slight teasing tone.

Sam did not know why. Nor did he care to be told.

"Because you're me. I'm you." Lucifer said simply, as if the concept were the most obvious thing in the world. "I may be locked up, but so long as _you're _still alive-"

"Shut up shutupshutup_shutup!_" Sam curled in tighter on himself and the darkness spat the wards back at him.

"You're still going to hurt, Sam. Just like I do." A warm hand fell onto the back of Sam's neck and Sam trembled. "You can try to not think about it, you can _try _to just move on, but is there realy any bouncing back from that? Out of anything and everything in this world your brother was the embodiment of good. And you? Sam, you were evil."

"Why?" Sam looked up into Lucifer's eyes. "Why me? Why did he get the happy ending? And I… every time I…" His fall into The Cage was supposed to be the end of the story. The end of their story. Sam could feel it in his bones. Had been prepared for it from the beginning. And, at the end of their story, Dean had gone off to live with the woman of his dreams and her son that he adored. And Sam? Well, Sam couldn't remember at the moment what exactly it was like having Lucifer and Michael literally sear the meat off his bones on a daily basis, but that would have been it for him. Eternity.

Eternity.

And Dean would die a normal, old man death and go to heaven. And Sam would burn for Eternity.

Eternity.

The only thing that had stopped it was Dean, _fixing _Sam like usual. Stuck in the same stupid loop of cleaning up his messes.

Eternity.

"Because you're the tragic hero, Sam. Try as you might, you'll win, but you'll never be successful. You'll lose every time." Lucifer's smile was tighter that time. "We have that in common."

Sam wanted to tell him that they had nothing in common, but even he knew it was a lie.

"But," Lucifer snagged his attention again. "What if I could change that?"

"What are you talking about?" Sam scoffed weakly, tucking his face securely into his knees again.

"What if I could help you? Save you? Make you forget, sugar?"

Sam slowly extracted his head from his knees; terrified of what he might find when he looked up. Wasn't the Devil bad enough?

Mallory smiled down at him, wearing the same plaid shirt and jeans Satan had been adorned with just moments before, balanced on the balls of her workboot clad feet with a warm hand on Sam's back.

"Hey, baby," she cooed. "Sorry I had to go the roundabout way of getting in your noggin', but I knew you wouldn't talk to me if I showed up as… me."

"You can… you can get in my dreams?" Sam stuttered, scrambling backwards in a frenzy to get away from her hands.

"Oh, yeah." She waved away his question absently. "You burn a few herbs and bleed a little you can do all sorts of things. But let's talk about you, sugar."

Sam responded by flopping over to his other side and presenting her with his back.

"I know you're miserable, hun." Mallory crooned softly in her attempt to prompt a response from the boy in front of her. "I can feel it roll off you. I can hear it in every word you say. Can Dean feel it? Can Dean _hear _it?"

Sam curled in tighter on himself.

"I'll tell you what, baby," Mallory sighed. "You don't have to answer me right now. Spend some more time with Dean. Think about what I've said. When you want to come back, find the cat. He can bring you to me."

Sam squeezed his eyes whut. _Wake up. Wake up. Wakeupwakeupwakeup. _

Mallory tangled her fingers in the hair at the base of his neck softly as she stood. "I can make you forget, Sam. I can give you the happily ever after you've had stolen from you over and over again."

The warmth on the back of his neck was gone and Sam was alone.

* * *

"Mr. Roth?"

Dean's head snapped out of its resting place between his knees so quickly the nurse was momentarily afraid he'd given himself whiplash."Is he okay?" Dean demanded as he stood, fully fed up with the uncomfortable chairs in the Waiting Room. As the name suggested, there was a lot of waiting going on in this room, and waiting wasn't Dean's forte.

"Sam's fine," she assured, ushering him forward with a wave of her hand to follow her back behind the desk. "He's asleep now. The doctor is running a few more tests, but we're fairly certain Sam was just having a panic attack."

Dean fumbled the next step he took. "_Panic attack_?"

"Has he been under a lot of stress recently?" The nurse asked sympathetically.

Dean blinked at her. Sam inhaled oxygen and exhaled stress. Sam ate stress for breakfast and sometimes vomited it back up later because of the stress. Sam was stress' spirit animal.

Now Dean had to start thinking about how six feet four inches of stress personified was going to cope with being packed into a four-year-old's body. Which, obviously, was going to be a stressful adjustment for Sam.

"You could say that." Dean allowed.

The nurse nodded, scribbling something down on a clipboard. Dean had the urge to smack the clipboard out of her hand. He resisted. Barely. "You can wait here for the doctor," she smiled gently at Dean before shutting the door behind her.

Dean looked over the hospital bed and held himself together by the skin of his teeth. Sam was so _small. _He was laying face down, hands shoved under the pillow, one leg tucked up into his chest. His tiny rib cage rose and fell evenly; his breathing was soft and smooth.

"Oh, Sammy," Dean exhaled heavily, his hand moving unconsciously to rest on the back of his brother's neck. "What are we going to do with you?"

Sam stirred lightly under the warmth of Dean's hand, but didn't wake.

There was the customary light knock on the door before a tall man with dark skin and darker eyes let himself in, his white lab coat trailing half a second behind his knees.

"You must be Sam's father," the man smiled with brilliant white teeth.

"Uh…" Dean shifted uncomfortably. "Sure."

"I'm Dr. Malcolm." Gerard Malcolm held out his hand and Dean shook it firmly, placing himself between the tall doctor and the prone Sam in the hospital bed.

"Dean." Dean nodded back.

"The tests came back negative for any respiratory or heart problems. Does your family have any history of mental illness, Mr. Roth?" Obviously Dr. Malcolm wasn't a beat around the bush sort of fellow. Dean was under the impression that very few ER doctors were.

"Not that I'm aware of." Dean cleared his throat.

"And Sam's been feeling anxious lately?" It was sortof, _almost_ phrased like a question.

"He's been having a rough year." Dean leaned back against the hospital bed, disconcerted with how his hand took up the entirety of Sam's back.

"Hm." Dr. Malcolm nodded. "Anxiety attacks to this degree are fairly uncommon among children Sam's age. You might want to think about looking into a child physiologist." Actually the very last thing in this entire world that Dean wanted to do was look into a child physiologist, but thanks for the suggestion. "At the very least make some change to your daily schedules to allow some time and force Sam to just… relax." Dr. Malcolm finished with a soft smile.

Dean stared at him. Yeah… that totally sounded like it was going to work. Bullying Sam into relaxation, _Jesus, _why hadn't he thought of that?

God, he hated doctors.

"What if it happens again?" Dean asked, because this power-time scheme was not going to work.

"Be reassuring." Dr. Malcom advised. "Take him somewhere cool and comfortable and make sure he's aware that he's not dying, he's not going crazy and he's not suffocating. If that doesn't work or if the attack intensifies to the point where he's at risk of hurting himself you should get him to a hospital." He let the words sink in for a moment before offering Dean a smile. "I wouldn't worry about it, though. Chances are that this was a one-time deal and Sam will continue life as a normal, happy child."

Dean stared at him. Normal. Happy. Child.

_God, _he _hated _doctors.

"When can I take him home?"

"I don't see any reason why Sam couldn't leave as soon as he wakes up." Dr. Malcolm considered. "He does have a slight fever, though. Nothing a few baby aspirin won't take care of over a few days, I don't think."

"Awesome." Dean nodded dismissively, trying to subtly hint on to the fact that he wanted Dr. Malcolm gone.

Thankfully enough it seemed like Dr. Malcolm was a champ at taking subtle hints, leaving Dean alone once again with Sam. A younger, smaller, cuter Sam, but Sam nonetheless.

"Hey buddy," Dean sighed lightly as he sat down on the bed next to the little bundle of Sam. "You gotta hurry and wake up, man. We need to get you to Bobby and get this shit figured out ASAP."

Sam snuffled slightly in his sleep, drowsily fidgeting and muttering something unintelligible under his breath.

"I know," Dean assured as he rubbed a soothing circle across Sam's back despite the fact he had no idea.

Sam stirred lightly again, this time his eyes cracking open to vaguely register his surroundings.

"Hey, little brother." Dean rearranged his face into what he hoped was an assuring smile.

Sam just stared at him for a few moments, the same unfathomable question burning from the depths of his glassy eyes and Dean felt his heart pick up an unsteady rhythm.

"What's going on?" Sam asked raspily as he finally broke eye contact in favor of the window at Dean's back. His eyes focused on a small black figure sitting primly in the window, licking its paw before he quickly turned his eyes to the ceiling in an attempt to forget about the cat and the dream.

Dean laughed breathily, the smallest edge of panic tainting the sound. "Oh, y'know, you're a four-year-old and a crazy woman wants to steal you. Then you had a panic attack and scared the bejeezus outta me. A pretty average day."

Sam rubbed at his eyes tiredly as he sat up. He muttered muted curses into the heels of his hands. "Jesus, my hands are tiny." He flexed and clenched his fists.

"How are you feeling?" Dean asked.

Sam leveled a look at him so dead that Dean felt a small sense of awe well up inside of him. Were four-year-olds even allowed to make bitchfaces as perfect as that?

"Alright, dumb question." Dean allowed, holding up his hands in defeat.

"Can we just get out of here?" Sam asked, a childish whine edging around the question as he tried to slide off the edge of the bed. He got halfway down before he realized that the ground hadn't risen to the occasion and met his foot, leaving him awkwardly clinging to the hospital sheets and flailing his short legs.

"Were you really this short when you were a kid?" Dean hooked his hands under Sam's arms and planted him on the ground. "'Cause, I gotta tell you, I don't remember you ever being this little."

"That's because you were shorter back then too, moron." Sam huffed, indignant about needing the help. He rearranged his huge t-shirt on his small frame (as far as anyone in the hospital was concerned, the four year old son of Dean Roth slept in t-shirts that pooled around his ankles and is not being abused in any way because the insane panic attack they just witnessed was brought on by his declining grades in pre-kindergarten. That was their story and Dean was sticking to it) and gave Dean a mildly reproachful look. Dean noted how his eyes were still glassy and unfocused with the combination of sleep and fever.

"Come on, tiger," Dean scooped up Sam, not waiting for the kid to drop from exhaustion. "Let's get the hell outta Dodge."

Sam fought him the entire walk to the front desk, complaining loudly that just because he was child didn't mean he was an invalid, but even as he talked his cheek crashed into Dean's shoulder and his eyelids drooped.

"Hey, Dean?" Sam mumbled drowsily into his neck as Dean carried him thorough the parking lot.

"Yeah S ammy?" Dean smiled to himself, amused with the pitch his brother's voice had been mutated to.

"How come you got the happy ending?"

* * *

_Pardon the angst. It shall dissipate slightly next chapter. and there shall be much rejoicing. yaaaaay. _


	4. Chapter 4

_Dear you, _

_I love you. But, I love _**SandyDee84, AngryCupcake, cold kagome, nison99, **_ and _**AndThenTheBigBangHappened **_more._

_Why?_

**BECAUSE THEY'RE MADE OF SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS AND EVERYTHING GOOD AND RIGHT IN THIS WORLD. **

* * *

If you have a clear mind, you don't get to think.

-Murphy's Miscellaneous Laws

* * *

John Winchester had never been the sort of man to question 'Why?' After the Fire 'Why' had ceased to exist. Why didn't matter. Thing where they way that they were and to question it was pointless. All that was left in the entire world was Newton's Law. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You take John Winchester's wife? John Winchester hunts you down for twenty three years, and not even death stops him from making sure you end too.

Not even death made John Winchester stop and think 'Why?'

Dean had always assumed that he and Sam had inherited this trait from him, but two hours and a hundred and twenty miles after Sam fell asleep on his shoulder he found out how wrong he was.

Two hours and one hundred twenty miles away from Mallory Redwood and her psychotically righteous mission to save Sam Winchester, Dean couldn't stop thinking 'Why?' Why did these things keeping happening to them? To _Sam? _

Did he really think Dean got the happy ending?

Dean ran a hand down his face tiredly, eyes darting over to the small bundle of curled up sweatshirts that was Sam.

He didn't even know how to _think _about that.

_Did he really thing Dean got the happy ending?_

Hell, everyone had gotten a 'happy' ending (in the sense that they were all alive and had a soul). Bobby. Cas. The _world. _Everyone but Sam.

But… why?

He continued mulling that 'Why' over and over again in his head as he flagged down a motel on the side of a fairly barren stretch of road. He let that 'Why' gnaw at the edges of his already questionable sanity as he bundled up Sam and carried him simply in one arm across the parking lot. He felt the 'Why' ware away at his insides until they were raw and welted as he laid out his little (_little) _brother on the motel bed and dragged a chair over next to it with the understanding that sleep wasn't a conquest he was going to be able to undertake that night.

Dean would have killed a puppy with a baseball bat for a good, stiff drink right then.

Sam's breath hitched in his sleep and he fidgeted uncomfortably, fighting monsters and demons that Dean couldn't save him from.

But, then again, Dean had never acknowledge the words 'couldn't save him' in that particular order when it came to Sam before. He sure as hell wasn't about to start now.

"Scoot over, shortstuff." Dean huffed as he crawled under the covers of the paisley motel down, boots and all, and used his hips to nudge Sam just enough so that they both fit comfortably. Sam grumbled something in his sleep lightly before curling into Dean's side. Dean threaded his arm underneath Sam's head and pressed his palm flat against the steady rise and fall of his chest, feeling the easy, if not somewhat quick, pace of his heart. And he didn't question that. Not for one second did he allow himself to wonder why.

"You listen to me, you little brat," He whispered into his younger brother's hair. "You're not dying. You're not going crazy. You're not suffocating. I'm here. I won't let you."

Mallory Redwood was going to have to take a goddamn ticket, because Dean had first dibs of protecting Sam. And as soon as he was done with that he was going back to make sure she could never interfere with that hard earned right ever again.

* * *

Sam's first semi-coherent thought when he woke the next morning was '_Feet'. _The complete thought there was 'I miss the feeling of my feet hanging off the end of the bed in morning'. The second semi-coherent thought he had was '_Waffles'. _The complete thought being 'I could really go for some chocolate chip waffles and strawberries right now with some whipped cream'. Which was weird because he hadn't had waffles since he was, like, _nine. _The air of Waffle Houses had lost their majesty a long time ago for Sam, and even the smell of waffles had made him sick for a few years, probably due to the fact that between the ages of four and ten Sam's diet had consisted of Lucky Charms, diner food, and red meat. To the point where he literally made himself physically ill of them and hardly touched them since.

However, _today, _some waffles and Lucky Charms sounded… pretty damn good.

Sam worked his eyes opened as best he could under the intense weight of sickness and stress to find Dean's arm wrapped around his shoulders and Dean's sleeping face inches from his own.

"Dean," Sam gritted out from his sore throat, sounding a little bit like he had been gargling glass instead of gasping for air like an asthmatic ninety-year-old for almost a half an hour the night before.

"G' b'ck t' sl'p." Dean mumbled drowsily, burrowing his face deeper into the pillow.

"Dean," Sam rasped again, swallowing thickly around the pain in his throat. "I'm hungry."

Dean cracked open a lazy eye.

Sam puckered his brow and frowned, eyes widening for the irresistible 'Puppy Dog' effect.

"Mm-kay, I'm up, I'm up." Dean grunted as he rolled out of bed, shifting heavily onto his feet. "How are you feeling?" He asked over his shoulder as he stretched out the numbness in his legs.

"Fine." Sam lied, kneading at his eyes.

Dean rolled his eyes and batted Sam's hands away from his face so he could press his palm against his forehead and feel the fever. They both sighed heavily.

"Bath time," Dean wedged a hand behind Sam's back and used it to lever him forcefully out of the bed, nudging him towards the bathroom door.

"But I don't wanna," Sam's voice kicked up to a whine as Dean continued to press him forwards.

"Too bad." Dean snipped, shutting and locking the door behind himself to cut off the escape route. "Strip." He commanded, stooping down to coax the faucet in the tub into submission.

"This is embarrassing!" Sam protested, crossing his arms indignantly over his chest. The effect was ruined by the half a yard of extra fabric hanging over each of his hands.

"Please," Dean scoffed. "I've seen four-year-old you naked before."

"So, I'm just supposed to be okay with it?" Sam demanded indignantly, voice cracking.

"Come on," Dean rolled his eyes. "Unfortunately, there is literally no part of you I haven't seen before." Sam simply glared at him for another long few moments and Dean could only sigh. "Come on, man," Dean begged. "Don't make this hard."

Sam sent one lost scathing look at Dean before putting his arms straight up in the air.

Dean had to blink a few times and Sam started waving his hands around a little impatiently before he finally got what was being asked of him.

"Really?" Dean huffed as he grabbed the back of Sam's sweatshirt and dragged it over his head. "Just because you look like a child doesn't mean you need to start acting like one."

Sam's hair came out on the other end of the sweatshirt sloppy and mussed, and his smile wide and cheeky. But his face was still flushed with fever and swallowing took more than a little effort, so Dean simply helped him scale the side of the bathtub.

"We need to get you some clothes." Dean commented as he fingered the twenty-billion-sizes-too-big sweatshirt still in his hands.

Sam nodded, teeth too busy chattering out a staccato beat with the sudden chill introduced to his overheated system to respond in complete sentences.

"I'll figure something out." Dean shrugged, tossing the sweatshirt away and shutting off the tap just in time to hear the thrumming guitar riffs that signaled his phone ringing. _Bobby _flashed across the screen.

"Got a lead on what that hair might 'a been about," Bobby said without preamble as soon as Dean put the phone to his ear. "Best I can figure it's some sorta regression spell."

"Yeah," Dean scratched at the back of his head, glancing at the wet Sam-child over his shoulder. "Yeah, we sorta figured that too."

Bobby paused long enough to digest that sentence and presumably drain whatever glass was sitting in front of him. "Do I want to know what you two idjits did?"

. Dean looked at Sam. Sam looked at Dean

"Probably not."

Bobby sighed a weary, longsuffering sigh. "Why don't you go ahead and tell me anyway."

"Alright," Dean drawled. "Well… Sam-"

"Nevermind, I've heard enough." Bobby sighed again hard enough that Dean was concerned he might have broken something. "How old?"

"Four-ish, I think." Dean made shooing motions with his hand towards Sam, motioning him towards the soap with a gesture that informed him he stank. Sam rolled his eyes and ducked his head under the water long enough to wet his hair. "It's hard to tell, though. He still acts like Sam." He reached above his head to grab the complimentary bottle of shampoo that barely took up space in the palm of his hand before passing it over his shoulder to Sam, where the bottle took up the entirety of both palms.

"What do you mean?" Bobby asked slowly, a cautious tone edging in around the corners of his voice.

"I mean," Dean clarified loudly. "Toddler body, normal Sam. Sam's big, big brain inside of a little, little, _short _body, Bobby."

"Dean, I want you to answer me very clearly now;" Bobby's voice had taken on a new tone of serious. "Did the witch finish the spell? Was it interrupted at all?"

Dean paused to replay the exact moment where he had tipped the entire alter over onto Mallory's living room floor.

"You could say that…"

"I am sayin' that." Bobby snapped. "Did she or didn't she?"

"No." Dean was back to scrubbing the back of his neck. "No, I tipped the bowl of soul food before she could finish."

There was silence for a moment on the line before: "Balls."

"What's wrong, Bobby?" Dean could hear the tint of panic start to creep into his tone and he felt Sam's eyes on the back of his head.

"These spells are complicated," Dean could almost see Bobby running a hand over his face on the other side of the phone, breathing heavily as he was plopped right in the middle of another Winchester problem. "Chances are, now that she's started it, she's going to want to finish it,"

"Oh," Dean's eyes darkened. "You don't know the half of it."

"The point here being," Bobby plowed on. "If she gets her hands on Sam again, she can finish the spell- put 'im in mindset of a four-year-old, and then lock it."

"Lock it?" Dean repeated.

"That sounds exactly as bad as it is." Bobby confirmed. "Lock the spell and Sam's gone forever."

Dean rubbed his eyes tiredly. _Whywhywhywhywhy… _"How do I undo it, Bobby?" He demanded.

"I got most of the things you'll need up here," Bobby sounded like he was shuffling through papers. "The rest of it I can get before next Monday. Where are you?"

"Louisiana." A two day's drive for anyone who wasn't toting around a four-year-old and didn't need food or restroom breaks. "We'll be there by Friday." Dean promised, silently hoping that he was right.

"Dean…" Bobby seemed to hesitate.

"What?"

"'Til that spell is gone or sealed, Sam might be a little… off."

Dean resisted the intense urge to beat his head against the toilet bowl until he was unconscious, mostly because the toilet bowl was dirty. "Off how, Bobby?"

"Depends on how far she got in the spell." He could feel Bobby shrug on the other line. "You can pretty much expect him to be all over the place emotionally, he might be a little slower than normal, but aside from that I don't know what to tell you."

Well, on second thought, the toilet bowl wasn't _that _dirty. "Thanks, Bobby."

"Look out for your brother," Bobby instructed. Dean just nodded before the call was disconnected.

The sound of water shifting and splashing from behind him and Dean turned to find exactly what he had expected: Sam's big eyes gazing at him intently, asking him without words to tell him what was wrong.

However, all Sam said was; "I want waffles for breakfast." before nodding once resolutely like he had just shared a grand piece of wisdom and returning to creating a mohawk out of the suds in his hair.

Dean grinned.

* * *

"You got it?" Dean peered in through the passenger's window at Sam struggling to tie the shoes Dean had run ahead and grabbed for him.

"I got it," Sam huffed, fumbling with the shoe laces again in his chubby fingers. "I can _do it_." He repeated for the sixth time since Dean had passed the bag of clothes through the window. It was an interesting change in ensemble to say the least. Considering that the 'Lumberjack Plaid' fad hadn't caught on with toddlers yet Sam was looking very un-Sammy wearing a Captain America t-shirt and a pair of tan shorts. The little red sneakers, if they ever became tied, would complete the look.

Sam growled deep in his throat as he messed up the laces again, yanking at the tangled mess with the obvious intent of starting all over again.

A grin touched Dean's lips as he opened the passenger's side door and stooped to his haunches.

"No," Sam tried to swat away his hands as Dean tied the shoe in record time. "Stop it! I can _do it!_"

"I know you can, Sammy," Dean soothed. "But we need to get you a couple more outfits before we can go get waffles for breakfast, so we need to hurry up. You can untie and re-tie 'em later all you want." Sam seemed to begrudgingly accept this compromise, crossing his arms snippily over his chest as he watched Dean finish tying the other shoe. "Come on," Dean helped Sam hop out of the car, holding has hand as they walked across the parking lot and into the Target.

"This is friggin' embarrassing." Sam complained as Dean threw a pack of little Spider-man tighty whiteys into their basket. "And why do you keep grabbing me superhero stuff?" He demanded, picking through the Wolverine, Batman, and Green Lantern shirts that Dean had already tossed into the basket.

"Because, if I'm hanging out with a kid, he's sure as hell going to look cool." Dean reasoned, scoring a basket in their cart with a bundle of Superman socks.

Sam rolled his eyes and turned his back to Dean in favor of a quest for normal shirt. That's how he came face-to-face with the most beautiful toy car he had ever seen. Black '69 Chevy Chevelle SS 1/32 scale with working doors, trunk, and hood, that ran forward if you ground the back wheels into the floor and dragged backwards.

Sam felt a very nearly physical want for the toy care settle in in the center of his chest. If he didn't get that toy car _right this second _he was going to break something. Or throw a fit. Maybe both. He wanted that toy car _so bad. _He started to fidget where he stood, the intense urge to just rip the dam car out of its plastic confines and sprinting away with it appealing to him on a level that should have disturbed him slightly.

"Sammy?" Dean glanced over at his immobile little brother. "You okay?" He walked over cautiously. It only took him a few seconds to connect the dots and then a grin split his face.

"Dean," Sam looked up from his place around Dean's knee, eyes dewy. "Can I have the Chevelle?" He squirmed around impatiently.

Dean's first instinct was to say no. No, you can't have the car, you're only going to use it for a week. No, you're not a child, you can't have a toy. But then Sam did that thing with his eyes that turned Dean's inside into marshmallows and kittens and he found himself checking out a toy car along with the bundles of superhero shirts, Sam giddily making race car sounds as he waved the toy car around in the air wildly.

"Waffles?" Sam demanded the very second Dean had settled into the driver's seat of the Impala.

Dean glanced over warily at his short passenger. "Are you sure, dude? You haven't eaten waffles in, like, twenty years."

Sam looked at Dean very seriously. _"Waffles. Chocolate chips. Whipped cream." _ He said in a voice that Dean had really only heard when Sam had been a Demon-interrogating/exorcising badass, which seemed so ridiculously out of place now that he was clutching a toy car to his Captain America chest.

Dean couldn't help but chuckle as he turned the key in the ignition. "Yeah, yeah, alright, waffles."

Neither of them noticed a put upon looking black cat settled gingerly on the roof of the car next to them, listening in on every word the Winchesters exchanged and pondering the many ways he could screw things up for them again.

The waffle house sounded like a good place to start.

Stretching leisurely, Hoodoo picked himself up and easily slunk down the windshield of the SUV, considering his debt to Mallory Redwood and plotting the ways he could pay her back. All he had to do was split up two brothers.

And, really, how hard could that be?

* * *

_Obligatory bathtub and shopping scene taken care of, now I can _really _start having fun. I'm feelin' some Castiel coming on next chapter… bahahahah! _

_Drop me a thought if you've got a minute._


End file.
